The Pack’s Favorite 2017 Moments

There’s a lot that came from 2017, even just in the Doghouse. We gained two new Mopdogs, many new clients and big events happened in many team members’ lives. Here’s a list of our pack’s favorite moments from 2017:

For me, it’s all about family and friends. Here are just a few of the many memorable moments in 2017:

Spending time with our extended family. From Easter egg dying to pumpkin carving, it has been a blast! Christmas was pretty special this year, having both Bill’s and my parents being able to celebrate!

My favorite day of 2017 was Sunday, September 10, where I went hiking with 12 others from the Atlanta Outdoor Club to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park. We sailed across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine – then began our ascent on the Grinnell Glacier trail. Everywhere you turned marked another opportunity for a phenomenal photo of the landscape. We encountered everything from a beautiful waterfall to a herd of bighorns resting in the wildflowers. We even watched as a woman swam around in the icy waters in her swimsuit and bare feet, while everyone in our group was bundled up from head to toe. As we wandered back, it was amazing to view the different perspectives of the same landscape in the afternoon sun.

Picking up tennis and winning my first championship!2017 was the year I decided I wanted to pick up tennis. My fiancé, Lucas, played and it looked like a lot of fun, but I had never played the sport before. I picked it up pretty quickly and even moved to line 4 on my women’s team! It has become an absolute passion for me, and I have been playing non-stop on my doubles women league as well as a mixed flex league with Lucas. Since I started tennis, I have already won two division titles. Even more, back in November, Lucas and I ended up taking the 3.5-T2 championship! Tennis has made me a healthier and happier person and I’m so grateful I’ve been able to keep playing!

My best friend, Paige, got married!Paige and I have been best friends since middle school. Back in 2015, I introduced her to a guy that I grew up with that I consider to be a brother, and it was all uphill from there! This past August, I got to stand by my best friend’s side as her maid of honor as she got to marry her soul mate, and it was absolutely magical!

I am going to go with the birth of my baby, Joy, and the many enormous smiles she has infected my family with this year. My other daughter Faith’s progress with using words has also been fun, especially as she has mastered telling me, “No, no, no,” when kitchen exploration times end.

There were a lot of great moments on my trip to the Southwest, but this one right here at Havasupai deep in the Grand Canyon tops them all. This place is notoriously hard to get reservations for. If you’re lucky enough to get reservations, you still have to hike 10+ miles through the desert to get there. If you’re smart, you start hiking by 4 a.m. On top of all that, only a handful of visitors to Havasupai brave the treacherous climb down the cliff walls to get this view of Mooney Falls.

Being welcomed into the Doghouse…duh. A lot happened in 2017 since moving to Kennesaw in March for Mopdog. First and foremost, I received quite the adventure from my sister’s wedding, which took place in St. Petersburg, Florida a day earlier than expected due to the mandatory evacuation from Hurricane Irma. The drive back took double the time it should have, but her wedding was absolutely beautiful and will forever be one for the books.

In general, though, I have been amazed to find a community I can call home through volunteering at Passion City Church, Atlanta Mission and Safehouse Outreach. I have made so many great friends and connections through these organizations, and I can’t wait to see how they will grow in 2018!

My favorite moment of 2017? Despite popular opinion, especially recently, I have appreciated not having to watch sports. Instead, in 2017, I really enjoyed be able to run production for my daughter’s dance company.

I enjoyed traveling this year to see some former ballet students perform on much bigger stages than here at home. Of note was a trip to New York City to see Germany’s Hamburg Ballet perform in the “Big Apple” and to spend time with my student, who is a newly promoted soloist in that company. I also took a summer road trip to Harrisburg, PA to see a student make her stage debut with one of the nation’s top professional ballet academies. These were both exciting and heart-warming at the same time!

My favorite memory of 2017 was celebrating Halloween with my roommates. Every year we take original costume ideas way too seriously in our home and, as our senior year, it was important for our grand finale to be a memorable one! It’s kind of silly to have your favorite memory be Halloween, but there genuinely is something so fun about dressing up and getting a reaction from people, especially friends. This year we went as the cast from The Grinch, and all of our costume pieces fell into place perfectly thanks to eBay and stores carrying Christmas merchandise earlier than they should. Looking back at 2017, I will never forget painting myself green and the looks I got riding in the car that night. This memory was simply fun and happy, which I think is the best way to remember a year!

There’s a lot to love about 2017, from having client mascots visit the office to travelling around the country, but most of all I have loved spending time with the Mopdog family outside of the office. The best one…attempting to save the world with the pack at the Escapery.